The Junior Professor Solution
"The Junior Professor Solution" is the second episode of the eighth season of the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory. The episode aired on Monday, September 22, 2014 immediately after the first episode of the new season. Summary Sheldon is made a junior professor job by the university, but now has to teach graduate students. No one signs up for his course except Howard. Bernadette is worried that Penny won't perform well in the job that she got her based upon her performance as a waitress. Amy is thrilled to be in the middle of her friends' conflict, feeling popular for the first time. Extended Plot While having dinner, Sheldon is describing a World War II project where Soviet Union Premier Joseph Stalin wanted to have human women impregnated by gorillas to produce super soldiers. Amy wondered what other animals could be crossed with humans to make an improvement on the human soldier? Leonard suggested hippos would make pretty bad-ass soldiers. Howard counters that when they are hungry-hungry, they could be stopped by marbles. Sheldon ends the discussion with the correct answer: koala. Their army would be so cute that it couldn't be attacked. Sheldon cuts off Raj when he suggests the owl. Penny's job starts next Monday and Bernadette is pushing Penny to finish studying the background material she has. Bernadette asks "When?" and Penny says that she will get to it. Sheldon senses the awkwardness, which Amy concurs with. Penny feels that they will teach her everything she needs to know; however, Bernadette just feels that they would be impressed if she was already familiar with the material. Penny doesn't want to be the teacher's pet, besides who has ever been hurt because they were the teacher's pet. Everyone puts their hand up. Sheldon has a meeting with Janine Davis of Human Resources. Sheldon assumes that she wants to reopen their dialogue on him changing his field of study: "Please. No. Please. No. Please. No." Janine says that while he was away, the university worked on his problem and came up with a solution. Sheldon is please that his pouting and running away did work. His current grant is for researching string theory; however, promoting him to junior professor he can work on anything he chooses though he will have to teach a class. Sheldon describes their solution as giving him a promotion and paying him more money so he can impart his knowledge to the next generation. He then calls the university "just plain sick". Amy is back to working with starfish when Penny comes over to have lunch with her. She is stimulating the pleasure centers of the starfish, but turns off the stimulation before she leaves so that the starfish doesn't have a better day than she is having. Penny didn't invite Bernadette to join them since is constantly bugging her to study. Amy figures that Bernadette thinks that she wants her to do well since she might not due to her poor performance as a waitress. Amy is uncomfortable talking about someone behind their back since she was usually the subject of the talk. Penny just needs a break. Amy says that sharing negative feelings can be a powerful bonding force between two friends. In the spirit of science she asks: What is that little Category:Episodes Category:Season 8 Category:Leonard-Penny Engaged Category:Penny has a job Category:Bernadette Category:Talks and Lectures Category:Sheldon Teaching Category:Howard Category:Amy Category:Sheldon Category:Penny Category:Leonard Category:Raj Category:Raj-Emily Together Category:Transcripts Category:The Big Bang Theory Category:Emily Category:Raj Talks Without Alcohol Category:Penny's Short Hair Category:Human Resources Category:No Stuart appearance (Season 8) Category:Mrs. Davis Category:Emily Mentioned Category:Amy's Lab Category:Autumn episodes Category:Apartment 4B